QUICK HITS
BEIJING People in Asia and beyond welcome Lunar New Year
People in Asia and around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year on Friday with festivals, parades and temple visits to ask for blessings.
This year marks the year of the dog, one of the 12 animals in the Chinese astrological chart. People in Beijing celebrated with family feasts and visits to bustling temple fairs amid the mid-winter chill.
Ditan Park in the city center was the most vibrant, with empty tree branches festooned with red lanterns and traditional goods and foods being snapped up by the churning crowds.
Other New Year traditions include the eating of dumplings in northern China and gift giving to children in the form of cash-stuffed red envelopes called “hongbao.” However, a ban on fireworks in 400 cities, including the capital, severely curtailed such traditional ear-splitting displays this year.
Ethnic Chinese and others around the world also marked the holiday with celebrations. In the Philippines, which boasts a large ethnic Chinese minority, fire breathers performed at a street fair in Manila and children used crates and buckets to put on improvised lion dances.
In Japan, lion dances were performed in Chinatown in the port city of Yokohama, while in Malaysia, a diver dressed as the god of good fortune fed fish at an aquarium in Kuala Lumpur as visitors looked on.
In South Korea, the festivals were more solemn, with refugees from the 1950-53 Korean War and their descendants paying respects to ancestors at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the country from communist North Korea.
ISTANBUL
Six journalists sentenced to life in prison
A Turkish court on Friday sentenced six journalists and media employees accused of involvement in Turkey’s 2016 failed coup attempt to life in prison without parole, the state-run news agency reported.
The Anadolu Agency said the court in Silivri, on the outskirts of Istanbul, convicted prominent journalists Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak and three other media employees of crimes against the state. One defendant was acquitted.
“This is a dark day for press freedom and for justice in Turkey and sets a chilling precedent for scores of other journalists facing trials on similar trumped-up terrorism charges,” said Gauri van Gulik, Europe Director for Amnesty International.
They are the first journalists to be convicted over the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, which Turkey says was orchestrated by a network led by U.s.-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen. The cleric denies involvement.
Their conviction came as another court in the same courthouse ordered German journalist Deniz Yucel — who has been detained in Turkey for a year — released from jail pending trial.
The defendants were charged with attempts against Turkey’s constitution and membership in a terror organization. They were employed by Gulen-linked media organizations but have rejected the charges, denying any involvement in the coup attempt.